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Re: Has anybody watched The Help movie?

I read the book and watched the film. It was certainly entertaining, but the representation of black men was very problematic, and I was bothered by the whole "white savior" trope that keeps coming up in American literature and cinema.

Recently I heard a 'wise guy' story that I had a party at my home for twenty-five men. It's an interesting story, but I don't know twenty-five men I'd want to invite to a party. ~Joan Crawford

Re: Has anybody watched The Help movie?

White people like the white saviour narrative, because they can identify with the white protagonist, who is absolved from white guilt and becomes a white hero for people of colour to worship. When the white protagonist joins the group of people of colour, white people imagine that it is possible for a white person to purge his whiteness, and hence, to free himself from white guilt and responsibility. Paradoxically, not only does the white protagonist rid himself of white guilt, but he also becomes the hero, the saviour, the superior group member because he is white.

So is this a syndrome related to those people who push that intellectual conceit that Irish and Italians are "non-white".